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Phil Kirk, retired chairman of DST Realty Inc., stands outside the Kirkwood residential development at 4950 Central St., where he has a residence. DST Realty co-developed the project.

Rob Roberts

Staff Writer

(Page 3 of 3)

This year’s Jim Davis Award recognizes Phil Kirk, retired chairman of DST Realty Inc., for his contributions to Downtown’s redevelopment. Named for the Kansas City Business Journal’s senior reporter who died in 2008, the award is a tribute to Davis’ appreciation of the urban core and respect for those whose efforts shape it.For this year’s honoree, the respect was mutual.“It was wonderful to have somebody like Jim Davis who was so passionate and involved,” Kirk said. “Jim lived Downtown. He was a great sounding board and fact finder. And he was such a keen journalist — a passionate guy, yet scrupulously honest.”Kirk said his bond with Davis was strengthened by simultaneous bouts with illness, Davis’ with cancer and Kirk’s with a rare autoimmune disease.Since his 2006 retirement, Kirk has continued to work on charitable causes, including expansion of the American Cancer Society’s Hope Lodges, which were his idea. Throughout the country, there are now 31 lodges, which serve out-of-town cancer patients.“I don’t want to start crying,” Kirk said, “but I’m really happy that there is now one at M.D. Anderson,” the Houston cancer center where Davis received treatment.

Phil Kirk recalled making his first downtown real estate purchase in 1983 — a grimy office building at 1015 Central St. to house his commercial realty firm.

“Dad was so upset with me that he cried,” Kirk recalled. “He said, ‘Your mother sacrificed everything so you could go to law school, and you have gone and done a dumb thing like this.”

Kirk started his career as an antitrust lawyer with Kansas City firm Morrison Hecker. But his professional interests soon gravitated toward real estate and redevelopment of the crumbling downtown area.

Among those who inspired him was Walt Disney, who began his illustration career in 1920 at the 1015 Central building. Eventually, Disney would master another art: creating pedestrian-friendly environments. So would Kirk and DST Realty.

Under Kirk’s leadership, DST completed the historic rehabilitation and new construction of 38 buildings, 2.3 million square feet of office space and 7,495 parking spaces on Downtown’s West Side.

Often, Kirk led through community-minded endeavors such as a late 1980s effort — supported by DST, the Hall Family Foundation and others — to transform vacant Quality Hill buildings into a campus for nonprofit organizations.

Kirk became involved with DST in 1984, when he sold the former American Hereford Association building on Quality Hill to Kansas City Southern Industries Inc., then the parent company of DST Systems Inc. As a result, he became acquainted with KCS Chairman Bill Deramus III, whom Kirk served as a consultant for two years before being named as president of DST Realty.

As Jim Davis told it for a 2007 series on catalytic Kansas City business leaders, “Deramus introduced Kirk to Tom McDonnell, CEO of DST Systems Inc. ... Deramus asked the two to craft a way to house DST’s growing financing data record-keeping business. The only stipulation: Stay Downtown.”

Kirk responded almost as succinctly with a two-page plan that became known as the West Side Strategy. It suggested housing DST in a number of downtown buildings and taking other steps to rebuild the urban core.

Kirk’s first effort to make Downtown a suitable home for DST was the 1984 development of the 10 Central Garage.

“People said you’re crazy building a parking garage when nobody’s here,” Kirk recalled. “We said nobody’s here because there’s no parking.”

Bob Graham, president of Landmark Mortgage Co., a Financial Holding Corp. subsidiary involved in the project, said the next joint venture he and Kirk undertook was the construction of the 12-story Broadway Square building at 11th Street and Broadway. Occupied by DST and other businesses, it proved demand for new West Side office space with adequate parking, Graham said.

A West Side tax increment financing district covering about 20 blocks was created in 1992 to help pay for additional parking garages. DST used 30 percent of its TIF proceeds to make grants to others in the district who needed help improving building facades and streetscapes, Graham said.

DST also helped McCormack Baron & Associates with its $40 million residential redevelopment on Quality Hill, joining a group of community lenders that provided secondary financing.

Kirk’s downtown swan song, however, was a project he supported on his own, the new central library that opened in 2004. Here’s how Davis told it:

“After years of mustering support for a new downtown library, Kansas City civic leaders feared the book on their endeavor would end sadly. Bank of America, owner of the library’s new intended home, was growing impatient after having extended the group’s purchase option. Bank officials said they needed $125,000 or would seek other buyers. ‘So I put that money up,’ said Phil Kirk.”

Kirk got his money back. But he hasn’t stopped giving. Through the Kirk Foundation, his family awards dozens of grants annually to organizations that promote the arts, education for at-risk children and other charitable causes.

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